


In Your Keeping

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hospitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-29
Updated: 2004-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:30:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post chapter 37.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Keeping

It´s all about irony, really.

It was fairly ironic for the Flame Alchemist to be so cold.

He has thought of human transmutation once or twice before in his life, but he is too numb to recall the principles of equivalent trade. To get something, you must give something. Right? But he has already been robbed of so much, and here is where he draws the line.

The hospital lays entirely hidden by the avenue, as if the military didn´t want to aknowledge that there is in fact blood and wounds. Death. But there are more blue uniforms here than in the headquarters. He remembers the darken of that blue when mixed with the living, pimping red of Hawkeye´s blood. And there was blood everywhere, like in a bad horror movie, and Roy wonders how it is then that all his nightmares are in black and white. Blood everywhere and when he recalls how pale Hawkeye (he brushed a lock of hair from her face, and felt a faint pulse, the skin cold, so cold) looked he want to throw things at walls.

But he stays sitting by the door of her room, watching the rest of his team take care of everything. Like in all his nightmares he can´t escape, he can just watch until the end.

It must have been hours since they come here, but time means little, shadows moving on a cheaply painted wall and the night closing in on him like ghosts.

Amstrong looks in the verge of tears, which isn´t surprising really, what is more upsettling is his resistance to cry openly.

"Colonel... why don´t you take a rest and go home?"

"Home?" His senses become alert gradually, woken by Amstrong´s words, but his mouth is still dry and bitter, moving slowly, full of bitten words. "There´s not such thing as home, Major. No. Home is in that room, fighting between life and death."

 _I should have asked you to hold me._

I should have held you.

*

Farman paces, he does that a lot, rehearsing a calm and careless expression. Somebody ordered a blanket earlier, Roy is sure it was him. But Roy never got to notice who put the blanket over his shoulders, he can´t feel any of its warmth.

It´s about the things left unsaid, about that little spot in Hawkeye´s back, the hollow where Roy´s hand fitted so well when he guided her down the hallways. He thinks nobody else noticed this. Sometimes he is not sure Hawkeye noticed.

Sometimes he wonders what he´ll do if Envy transforms into Hughes in front of him. Now he wonders if in a couple of hours Envy will be granted another trick.

"Colonel... Is there something more we can do to help?"

He has half expected not to recieve an answer but surprisingly Roy speaks clear and resolute, but low, as if he couldn´t stand the sound of his won voice.

"Somebody should feed Black Hayate."

"Oh, of course. I´ll talk to Fury, maybe we can have special persmission to take it to our dorm for the night."

Roy seems to sink a bit more in his seat, but his muscles become rigid and his expression hardens.

"Tell them it´s a direct orden from the Colonel."

In a blur of noding and boots cliking down the aisle Farman leaves. Roy curses himself, he was doing so well until that damn ugly dog came up, he was being the picture of perfect calm until now. He feels his voice breaking even in his thoughts, faltering.

It´s about what makes our walls crumble, about how you can never make a mask so solid that nobody can see past it.

 _You always know what I´m talking about, when I say just the opossite of what I mean. You could always tell what I´m thinking, you should know I´m always thinking about you..._

He believes he should have said "I want to hold you now, and if you don´t want it you´d better stop me, and no matter of honor, pride or my fucking insecurities are going to come between us".

*

With his nervous chatting and his sincere worry for Hawkeye, Edward Elric is not more than a red trenchcoat and a handful of good intentions, and under any other circumstances Roy would have appreciated the effort. He has enough people walking up and down this hallway, inquiring doctors and giving him pity and grim stares. Roy doesn´t need that from a kid, too.

"Sit down for a minute, you´re driving me crazy."

Edward´s face goes all shades of red. For once he looks his age.

"Sorry, colonel."

And he sits beside Roy. He knows there´s not much comfort he can offer, that he´s just an annoying brat to the colonel, but he is going to stick here, slight is was the help he can give. Roy feels the warmth of another body near and the gesture suprises him. Nobody has dared to sit with him tonight. He smiles, anvious of the innocence and well meaning of the boy.

Hawkeye was always telling him (in her million subtle ways, invisible to the amateur eye) to treat the Elric Brothers more nicely.

He can do that for her, at least.

"Edward... I appreciate you being here." And then again, in his usual cold voice "Though it´s not necessary."

Ed´s face lights up and he risks to look at the Colonel in the eye for the first time since he heard of Hawkeye getting hurt. As usual Roy´s face betrays nothing but though numb with pain and worry Ed could see that his profile has softened a bit.

"I know it´s not. That´s what you apreciate it. Isn´t it, colonel?"

The colonel´s eyes narrow and finally Ed can see a faint trace of humor in them.

"You can´t stop being a nagging, know-it-all brat for a minute. Eh?"

And they both smile.

*

"He´s fallen asleep." Havoc notices, pointing at the lithe shape of Edward Elric curled up in his chair.

Roy nods. "He snores."

From the corner of his eye he can see that Havoc is so nervous that he can´t even light up his cigarette. And Edward will hurt his back if he keeps sleeping like this.

"Take him back to the headquarters, he shouldn´t be here anyway."

Havoc wonder at how light he is, auto-mail and all.

The hallway is now empty but for Roy and the ocassional doctor that come to check on Hawkeye. He has given up asking them.

In a time like this he can´t help remembering, painfully, each and every moment he has spent with Hawkeye.

 _Too few, too few_ , he thinks now, almost histerically.

" _I know we are not being paid to smile, but once hurt, just once in a while_."

She pretended that she hadn´t heard him but just a moment after he caught her smiling to herself while trying to hide behind paperwork. What was more amazing, he thought then, is that he felt the urge to smile at this, too.

 _What are we going to do when the morning breaks? Not now when we are so void of memories. And it looks like we have run out of chances_.

He has always thought there´ll be a tomorrow. To tell her about all this things.

 _To tell you about the first time you made me smile, the first time I called out your name, your first name, and you turned to look at me, rendering me breathless for a moment_.

It´s about the little things. About how rough is the fabric of her military uniform and when he brushes his hand against it he pretends it was an accident, and he suspects she does the same thing, many times a day. Like a silent agreement.

The things we do, and the things we don´t say. We have taken so much for granted, but... _what will I do when morning comes and it doesn´t find you by my side_?

 _If only there was a way that you could understand how I feel when you look at me that way_.

*

When the doctor finally comes to speak to him he´s been thinking about death for hours.

Not her death, because he is not prepared to go into that just yet (he may as well never be) but his. He remembers all the times he wondered what she would do if he died. It was a childish game, and unfair but still he wondered...

 _Would you bring me flowers? Would I be in your keeping?_

...would you cry for me?

The doctor approaches and Roy regrets each step echoing, cutting through the late, too late end of the night.

No, not yet, not now. _Not not now when we have so few memories to help us through the winter, to help me through our time apart._

Roy doesn´t believe in God so all the promises he makes are vows to himself. He drowns in cliches (if she lives, I´ll tell her, if she lives I won´t take anything for granted) and for a moment he means them, as if they were uttered for the first time in human history.

 _We will do it all from the start, we will rewrite love_.

The doctor stops in front of him and Roy doubts he has the courage to look up.

*

There are too many people in her room and he feels more like a stranger than ever, the sharper edge of morning finding him waiting outside, between exhaustion and joy, in a explosion of hard white.

Not surprisingly. the Elric brothers are the last to leave the room, weary but happy. He exchanges a brief glance with Edward and it´s the closest to a "thank you" that Roy Mustang will ever manage.

He wants to remain cold and professional but he can't stop the corners of his mouth broadening to smile as he opens the door. And when Hawkeye sees him (it´s only been one day and he already looks like an entirely different person to her, more like the memory of the first time she saw him, lost in that first moment, but idolized with time) she has the same problem, after all these years of practice (until they reached perfection but now they start again).

They don´t talk much, they never have. And it´s mostly of work. Roy is just too happy to swim in her presence to put it into words, and the coldness it´s not there anymore.

"The Homunculus have plans for you. You know it. Right?"

He shakes his head.

"I´m not a bit worried. I have you to protect me."

And just then Hawkeye thinks she should say something deep and meaningful, but just subtle enough not to be dangerous, something like "always" or "I´ll have to see that you don´t ditch work" or anything. And though her mouth begins to open words won´t come out, and Roy just takes her hand beneath the sheets, looking somewhere else, as if the gesture didn´t mean anything. But before she could savour the feel of Roy´s skin on hers (for no particular reason, with no excuses, just because he wanted to touc her) he withdraws the hand, half-embarrased, half-scared.

 _Didn´t you know there was never reason to doubt?_

He utters what resembles a rushed apology, arguing that she should rest and exits the room. It is not until he leaves the hospital that he breathes out again, telling himself that there´ll be time for all he meant to say.

Some other day.

*

It´s all about the irony of the promises we never kept.

Someday he´s going to tell her.

But not today.


End file.
